Just a few 50mm lenses I pulled for this post: Nikon 50mm f/1.4 Ai-S, Minolta 50mm f/1.4 AF, Canon EF 50mm f/1.2, Sears 55mm f/1.4, Pentax 50mm f/2, Sony FE 50mm f/1.8, Nikon 50mm f/1.8D, Pentax Takumar 50mm f/1.4, Olympus 50mm f/1.8

Not pictured here, but the other day I got at the thrift store a Canon FL 50mm f/1.4 II.  It was in mint condition and from about 1968 in my research.  I had that lens in the past, and since it was in such good shape and a cheap price, I was like why not add yet another 50mm to the shelf.

50mm is one of my favorite focal lengths, and I don’t think any manufacturer really makes a bad 50mm lens.  Even the ones going back almost one hundred years.  Wide open they all have their own flaws, but stopped down they are just fine for all types of photography.

For my own testing purposes I rounded up some of my random vintage 50s and adapters and went about photographing random stuff around the house and town.

---

Photos of Drawings

In these static photos of my artwork, I shot stopped down and wide open.  Since the manual lenses don’t pass along aperture info to the mirrorless cameras, there is some guessing as to the exact aperture, but to be honest at f/4 and smaller they are all plenty sharp and it would be very difficult to tell them apart in a blind test.  What was time consuming was renaming all the files to make sure I had the right camera and lens combo.  For these one light in my dim room shots I would have no problem using any of these lenses.

When the adapter comes in for the old Canon FL lens I’ll definitely add it to my long personal 50mm lens compendium.  There’s so much personal preference when it comes to each of these lenses, and I’m glad you can still find many of these for a song, either online or thrifted.  More outside photos when this crazy heat calms down!

---

Random 50mm Posts on my site:

Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 Samples + Rolling Review

Minolta 50mm lenses on A7 Samples

Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 – Low Light Samples

Sony A7 + Canon EF 50mm 1.2L + Minolta 50mm 1.4 AF – Sample Photos

Fujifilm GFX 50S and Nikon 50mm 1.8 Ai-S